Walter Logeman: Journal
This site was recommended by Dolores on Techne & Psyche. I found some of a discussion she reccomends thus:
the ongoing dialogue between Steve Talbott (editor of NetFuture ) and Kevin Kelly (editor-at-large of Wired) which began with Steve’s essay The Deceiving Virtues of Technology. Their forthright give and take cuts through to the deeper issues concerning technology and how it is changing our sense of what it means to be a human being.
Index to a wealth of articles, many about dream sharing online. I am looking for dreams that help define cyberspace, that reveal cyberspace, any offers?
”That is why we must, to use them at all, serve these objects, these extensions of ourselves, as gods or minor religions… Physiologically, man in normal use of technology (or his variously extended body) is perpetually modified by it and in turn finds new ways of modifying his technology. Man becomes, as it were, the sex organs of the machine world, as the bee of the plant world, enabling it to fecundate and to evolve ever new forms.The machine world reciprocates man’s love by expediting his wishes and desires, namely, in providing him with wealth.”
This site is by Brett Breitwieser who is on the wavelength – where psyche meets cyberspace – or in his words: “the polytheistic psyche meets the polycentric web…” Links to McLuhan, Chardin, Hillman. A nice find for me but also disturbing as it picks up on all those far right politics of the soul we find occasionally in Hillman and Camille Paglia, who is heavily linked. I hate that smart attack on the “politically correct” (nasty sarcastic phrase that it is.) It also looks like this is a site that literalises polytheism rather than using it as a way of psychologising, in other words they make it into a church. Easily done when one advocates seeing the sacred in everyday life.
Phoenicia, Phoenicians: Cadmus the Phoenician – Another telling of the myth.
Unfortunately, now Cadmus had no men. He looked to the gods and since he had sacrificed the cow, Athena answered his plea. “Don’t worry,” said the goddess. “Just plow a field and sow the dragon’s teeth in the furrows.” Cadmus followed Athena’s strange advice and as soon as the teeth were sown, fully grown warriors sprang up. They all ran at Cadmus and again he feared for his life, but again Athena stepped in. “Throw a rock among them!” she told Cadmus. Again, Cadmus did as the goddess said, and at once the warriors fought each other fiercely, accusing their neighbor of being the thrower of the rock. In the end, only five remained living, and those were wounded badly. Cadmus nursed them back to health and they helped Cadmus establish the city of Thebes.
Is this then the five vowel sounds? Updated this item: 10 August 2002
Having found this site (see previous Item) and noted the paucity of references to him, here he is again, Harold Innis:
“Innis sees communication media as extensions of the human mind and believes that the primary interest of any historical period is a kind of bias resulting from the predominant media in use. In other words, what happens, and what seems significant in a historical period are determined by the media.
“Heavy media such as parchment, clay, or stone are lasting and therefore time-binding. Because they facilitate communication from one generation to another, these media favored relatively close communities, metaphysical speculation, and traditional authority.
“In contrast, space-binding media such as paper are light and easy to transport, so they facilitate communication from one location to another, fostering empire building, large bureaucracy, commercialism, and the military.
“Speech as a medium, because it is produced one sound at a time, encourages people to organise their experience chronologically. Speech also requires knowledge and tradition and therefore supports community and relationship. Written media, which are spatially arranged, produce a different kind of culture. The space-binding effect of writing produces interests in polotical authority and the growth of empires across the land.
“Innis grew increasingly pessimistic later in life. Changes in communication technology were seen as a revaluation of community and a of loss culture and freedom. What Innis saw most clearly was that the main meaning of electronics was not in the provision of entertainment and information through radio and television. he recognized that the speed and distance of electronic communication enlarged the possible scale of social organization and greatly enhanced the possibilities of centralization and imperialism in matters of culture and politics.”
Update: There are two spellings of Innis on the site but I have (I think) corrected this item to Innis.
I learnt about Cadmus from reading McLuhan – was he onto it! Here is a snippet from a small potent piece about the Greek god of the alphabet (and hence, eventually, the Internet!). This is from a site, Mots pluriels “a refereed electronic and international journal open to literary-minded scholars wishing to share their points of view on important contemporary world issues.” I can’t find the context or the author of this item.
The alphabet is a magic technology. These dragon’s teeth/letters contain the magic of fertility and trans-substantiation. Teeth/letters grow magically into soldiers. The alphabet, as we see again when we reread the story of Moses in the court of Pharaoh, unleashes a new power in its users to convert one thing into another. The secret lies in the alphabet’s magic ability of abstraction. This can become that because more information can be held more compactly and meaningfully in the head, and manipulated mentally. Pictographic writing is either literal – this is this – or else it is iconic: this stands for that (and only that). The alphabet endows its user with a mental plasticity that is impossible for pictography. Letters signal hidden connections and correspondences, tracing the roots of meaning that lie beneath the surface of language. To illiterates or to cultures still using pictography, the alphabet fulfills Clarke’s Law: it must seem like a form of sorcery for the powers, the grammar and glamour, it grants to those who commandeer it.
Another snippet – variation – on the Cadmus story, DRAGONSTEETH
When Jason sows the dragon’s teeth, each tooth transforms into a fierce warrior. But Jason, by magic, kills all of them and claims the golden fleece.
The myth goes on from there, but our concern is with the sgnificance of the dragon’s teeth. The dragonteeth-become-warriors represent the letters of the alphabet (also credited to the legendary Cadmus). Why warriors? Because the invention of writing made possible extending communication to aid long-distance strategy in warfare. A strategic leader would send a long-distance runner to a tactical leader in the field. The illiterate runner might be able to remember many details (illiterates often compensate thus), but within serious limits. An illiterate messenger bearing a long, written scroll could transmit extensive military orders to a field commander. Thus was the city-state extended to the empire — BY THE ALPHABET!
This is from John Hays – and is the thesis I have understood as coming from Harold Innis.
John Suler –Internet Psychology: The Basic Psychological Features of E-Mail Communication
E-mail is not just electronic mail sent via the internet. E-mail communication creates a psychological space in which pairs of people — or groups of people — interact. It creates a context and boundary in which human relationships can unfold.
Well put.
An item by “beppu” – Some interesting ideas, free software as a metaphor for human freedom. Noting the importance of GPL in our everyday lives – he claims it is at the root of the Internet, may be true? There is something not quite right about the style though and the angle, I can see why they did not print it. However I like the direction he is pointing to. There could be a lot more education about the GPL, its importance. For example download sites and Linux mags could do more to mention the licence.